What are fitness accessories?

Fitness accessories are products which help us to improve certain skills which are vitally important for many kinds of training or competitions.

Some of these accessories help us to improve our stability and balance, others are to improve speed, others to improve muscle toning... Within the broad category of fitness accessories, there are accessories to carry out suspension training, such as TRX; speed training, such as the Adidas or SKLZ accessories; balance training, with products such as trampolines or unstable surfaces like balance cushions or wobble boards; other articles which help toning like medicine balls, elastic exercise bands, mattresses, or ropes; and other muscle building accessories such as gloves, lumbar support belts, weighted belts, which help to improve our training.

Most of these can be used with the muscle building apparatus or in training sessions on cardio machines in order to broaden the range of possible exercises and to work harder on strength and resistance.

Why train with fitness accessories?

There is a great variety of fitness accessories and complements, a huge range to choose from and to train with. What's more with this variety we can adapt the products we use in training as we get fitter.

Each type of accessory can be used for different sports training or exercises, to complement the exercise or to do as an exercise in its own right, so that a simple dumbbell can used to complement our bench training routine, but also for free weights exercises, etc. So, fitness accessories are some of the most useful training complements there are.

Keys to choosing fitness accessories

1. THE TYPE OF ABILITY YOU WANT TO IMPROVE

When it comes to choosing a fitness accessory, it is important to focus on the range of products with which you can do the kind of exercises necessary to improve the specific activity or skill that you are working on. For example if you want to improve your speed, you will have to use accessories which enable you to gradually improve your technique so you can get faster. If, on the other hand, you want to work on your strength, you are more likely to choose products from the muscle strengthening range such as weighted belts, or lumbar support belts.

2. THE KIND OF EXERCISE YOU WANT TO DO

After deciding the kind of skill you want to improve and having found out the range of products which can be used for that objective, you will have to find out which exercises you can do with these products so you can decide which ones you think you are going to be more comfortable with or which ones suit your physical conditions best.

3. MATERIALS, WEIGHTS AND OTHER FEATURES

Finally, you will have to choose between the accessories maybe taking into account the weight, what it's made of, the size or other features such as the design and comfort.